Wages rose by an average 3.2% last year, inflation was 10%

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Wages rose by an average of 3.2% last year, with the biggest increase – more than 5% – agreed for teachers, national statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

The figures cover actual wage rises, not the large increases agreed in the final months of the year, which do not come into effect until later in 2023.

Inflation averaged at around 10% last year and the difference between it and the average wage rise is the biggest recorded by the CBS since it started publishing average salary increases in 1973.

According to employers’ organisation AWVN, which advises companies on pay negotiations, salaries will go up considerably this year and a number of agreements reached in the last months of 2022 were for more than 6%.

However, some 200,000 people whose new deal was set before inflation soared will have be content with no more than 2.5% this year.

Help

The cabinet has introduced a number of measures to help offset the impact of high inflation, and minimum wage rates have risen 10.4%.

But while the government’s plans to cap energy prices will dampen the impact of higher fuel costs, the average household in the Netherlands will still have about 4% less to spend in 2023, the government’s macro-economic policy unit CPB said in December.

The decline in spending power is due to high inflation and lagging wage growth, the CPB said.

Some eight in 10 workers are covered by a centrally agreed pay and conditions deal or CAO negotiated between employers and unions and which covers a fixed period, usually one or two years.